Over the past two years I’ve been approached by several people from around the world inquiring about our World of Warcraft in School Project. Yet, despite the numerous contacts, I’m only aware of two other schools/school systems who’ve started similar projects. Of course, there are many potential barriers from costs to people-barriers. Craig Lawson (@midlawsondle) and I have worked over the past year to create a full-year, standards-aligned language arts course that is based on World of Warcraft. We have several goals in doing so:

1. We want to demonstrate that there is value in considering commercial, off-the-shelf games for curricular integration.

2. We want to share our work with anyone else who might take it on, and in doing so, expand the network of educators who are exploring the potential that games like this hold for the classroom.

3. We want to create a model (using the term loosely, here) upon which similar projects, perhaps using other games might be built.

4. We hope that others will look at the work and expand on it, improve it, and share it.

5. We want to show that, “Yes! You can do this.”

Last Friday, we decided to kick it out of the nest. It’s a work in progress and we sincerely welcome your feedback. If you want to start something similar in your school, it contains most of what you need to get started. For what’s missing, well, that’s where the power of networking comes into play. Contact me, especially via Twitter (@PCSTech), and I’ll do my best to fill in the gaps.

If you’d like to download the .PDF of the curriculum, you can find it on the project wiki or preview it below:

Thank you so much for sharing this with fellow educators. I wish I lived there in Florida and was a part of this wonderful opportunity. I spoke with you almost a year ago it seems about your work and me creating an action research project based on some of its similarities. I am an avid believer that RPG’s and other such games can be very useful educational tools in the classroom. I recently conducted my action research project using Guild Wars to teach social skills (teamwork, leadership, collaboration, etc…) that are needed in the 21st century workforce. You can view my work on that topic at http://levonda.com/AR/ if you would like. Thanks for everything you do and keep up the great work! =)